


Hespeid

by jujubiest



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Canon Jewish Character, Funeral, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 16:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9132085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: The Pines family comes together for the first time in years to mourn a loss.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The entirety of this fic takes place during and right after an American Jewish funeral service and burial. Thanks so much to mcjenni05 from tumblr for beta-reading this for me to make sure I didn't screw it up!

_I shouldn't be here. This was a mistake._

Stan stares down at a pair of his brother's shoes, ill-suited to his feet even though they're technically the same as his usual size, and doesn't know what he's supposed to feel. There's anger, resentment in spades, but also pain and a deep root of guilt twisting his stomach into a knot. He can't bring himself to look up, and he has to keep reminding himself not to fidget with the torn black ribbon attached to the front of his jacket.

The rabbi's voice rings out above his bent head, delivering his father's hespeid. The words are meant for comfort, but they only add confusion to Stan's roiling insides. He isn't sure he knows the person being described. It is not, in any case, the father he remembers.

He remembers a stern, square-jowled face made permanently inscrutable by a pair of dark-lensed glasses that were never taken off. When he was six years old, he asked his ma why because he was afraid to ask Filbrick. She said the light hurt his eyes, and something about getting hit in the head too many times. Stan assumes she must have been referring to boxing.

He remembers a mouth that rarely smiled. Getting even a nod from Filbrick Pines was a high honor; getting a smile out of him was nigh unheard of. Stan can only recall one: the day he won his first boxing match. It was small, but it was there, tucked under his father's lampshade mustache. The sight of it filled Stan up with so much pride he thought he might float away like a hot air balloon.

That feeling evaporated fast, and left an emptiness behind that Stan was never quite able to fill again. He doubts Filbrick could even remember a time when he was proud of his "other" son. He was sure proud of Stanford, the smart son, the son who was destined for great things. He seems to have doted on Shermie, who sits to Stan's left sniffling quietly, obviously feeling the way a son who's lost his father ought to feel.

The father Stan remembers probably wouldn't even want him here.

And there's the crooked foundation all his other emotions are built upon: the feeling that he just shrank three inches. It's the way Filbrick always made him feel, ever since he can remember.

 _This was a mistake_ , he thinks again. _I should never have showed my face here. Even if nobody knows it's_ my _face._

But he hadn't been able to stay away, either. He may not have been very observant in his life, and his parents were far from Orthodox. But still, he knew it was important for a son to be there to mourn his father. Even if that father thought he was already dead, while the son he would have wanted mourning him was trapped in some other dimension, maybe dead as well.

 _All thanks to me_ , he thinks sadly.

Stan hasn't been able to meet his mother's eyes yet. He's afraid she'll recognize him, and even more afraid she won't.

He goes through the rest of the service and the procession afterwards on autopilot, barely aware of his surroundings until he's standing beside his father's open grave, hearing himself recite Kaddish in an approximation of his twin's voice. He's vaguely surprised to find that he actually remembers the words, despite it being years and years since he heard or read or said them.

His mother stands on one side of him, his younger brother on the other, and though they both stay upright he can feel them tremble with grief he doesn't fully understand at the loss of someone he never knew.

When it is time to place earth into the grave, Stan steps forward to help his mother with the heavy shovel. She looks so old, so thin and fragile. He has a shivery moment of cold fear, that he will be back here again before long to bury her as well.

It isn't until they're wedged in the car, on the way back to the house to sit shiva, that his mother finally speaks to him.

"I've lost two of my boys now," she says sadly, wistfully. "My Filbrick and my Stanley. We never even got to bury your brother."

Stan tenses, tries to keep his face from giving anything away. It hurts even more than he thought it might, that she could look at him and not know him. She _always_ knew. As kids, Stanley and Stanford did their fair share of switcharoo-related pranking, but their mother was the one person who could not be fooled...and not just because Stanford had six fingers on each hand. She didn't need to look at their hands; she just knew. She used to joke that it was her one true psychic ability.

He's the ultimate con man, now: the man who can fool his own mother.

"Oh ma," he breathes, and he forgets to say "mother" the way Stanford would have, forgets to smooth out the roughness of his own voice so that he sounds like him. He feels the exact second when his mother realizes, because she turns to stone beside him.

"Stanley?" There's an edge to the question that scares him. Her bony hand clenches on his arm, almost painful.

"Please, Ma," is all he can manage. _Please forgive me. Please don't be mad. Please don't cry. Please don't send me away again._

The hand on his arm unclenches slightly.

"Stanley," she says again, softer this time. The vice grip on his arm loosens further, and then both her arms twine around his one, an odd not-hug that still makes his insides light with relief.

"'M sorry, Ma," he whispers. "I know I shouldn't've come, but Stanford couldn't, an' I figured one of us should be here."

Thankfully, horribly, she doesn't ask why Stanford couldn't be there. Stan gets the feeling she wasn't really expecting him to be, and that sends a spike of anger through him that he feels guilty for immediately.

It occurs to him that most of the perplexing emotions he has for his father could also apply to his absent brother. He hates it; all that jagged, twisted-up resentment and sadness where there used to only be love.

"He regreted it, you know," his mother says softly after a moment. "He never said so...he never would admit he was wrong about anything. But he wanted to call you. Or write. Just never knew where you were. And then...we heard about the car wreck. It took them a long time to tell us. Fil was never the same. I think...I think he felt like it was his fault."

 _It_ was _his fault_ , Stan thinks bitterly. It was all his fault. The little resentments between him and Stanford, the way he used to try to pit them against each other, all the little things he said and did to try to get them to compete. Stan never thought any of it worked until that awful night after the science fair. And until he read some of that blasted journal his brother left behind. Not that his brother talked overmuch about him in it, but the things he did say made it pretty clear: Filbrick Pines had thought Stanley was a waste of space and breath, and Stanford had decided he was right. One stupid mistake, and that was all she wrote. Eighteen years of sticking by each other's side through thick and thin didn't mean anything.

With an effort, he pushes all that aside. He's been living with that razor wire in his gut for years now; he can put it aside for one day and pick it back up again tomorrow. Today is about remembering his father.

He's back home for the first time in twenty years. His little brother is all grown up, someone he wants to get to know. His mother is holding onto his arm for dear life, and doesn't want him to go away.

He knows she will have questions later. How could she not? He's not supposed to be here. He's supposed to be dead.

But just for now, they're family. Coming together to mourn a loss.


End file.
